Pacific

More reports of arrests, torture in West Papua

12:38 pm on 5 July 2014

The National Committee for West Papua, the KNPB, is saying that another seven of its activists were captured by the Indonesian military on Friday.

This follows the arrest of six KNPB activists on Thursday, who were detained in the provincial capital, Jayapura for distributing leaflets calling on West Papuans to boycott the Indonesian presidential election on the 9th of July.

According to reports, the seven activists were captured by soldiers in the Timika region and tortured and beaten before being handed over to police.

The KNPB says their whereabouts remain unknown.